e-mail: fol (at) tao (dot) ca
Friends of the Lubicon (Toronto)
Address as of Dec 12, 2000:
PO BOX 444 STN D,
ETOBICOKE ON M9A 4X4
tel: (416) 763-7500
The following article appeared in the November 1996 edition of the Sierra Legal Defence Fund newsletter and describes Daishowa's latest attempt to suppress criticism of its lawsuit against Friends of the Lubicon.
November 1996
Not content with an injunction preventing the Friends of the Lubicon from organizing a consumer boycott to protest Daishowa's forest practices, Daishowa has gone to court attempting to censor SLDF's newsletter, and to restrict University of Victoria law professor Chris Tollefson ( an SLDF director ) from referring to the Daishowa lawsuit in the context of his SLAPP suit writings and speeches. The reasons of the court were subject to a rare publication ban between September 13 and November, now lifted.
This unusual request by forestry multinational came in the context of an application to adjourn the trial ( originally set for October ), based on Daishowa's resistance to producing court-ordered documents and answering Discovery questions. Daishowa asked the Court to impose conditions which would prevent SLDF from referring to the case as a SLAPP suit, or from blaming Daishowa for the adjournment. (The SLDF newsletter has called this action an apparent SLAPP - "apparent" since the court has not yet ruled on its merit.)
SLAPP suits are strategic lawsuits against public participation, which have little merit and are brought by corporations to intimidate public-minded citizens from criticizing them. Professor Tollefson has written extensively on this issue, including a major article in the Canadian Bar Review to which Daishowa took exception.
The trial is now scheduled for September 1997, and Discovery continues. Meanwhile, SLDF lawyer Karen Wristen, on behalf of the Friends, has filed an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada the injunction preventing the boycott.
Friends of the Lubicon will defend their consumer boycott at trial in September, 1997, following a ruling handed down September 13.